USPTA announces Tennis - for the health of it! Web site

The United States Professional Tennis Association announced the launch of tennis-health.com, a web site supporting the Tennis — for the health of it!℠ initiative. This free, interactive Web site targets teaching professionals, tennis consumers, health-care professionals, and non-tennis playing consumers. Its goal is to communicate the tremendous health benefits of tennis and that tennis is fun, easy, exercise for people of all skill, age and fitness levels.

Tennis-health.com has various resources for each market/demographic that include video tips and articles on exercises, injury prevention and nutrition tips specific to tennis, links to DVDs and books, information on how to find local events and teaching professionals, etc. The interactive portion allows people to log in to a private area to record their personal statistics, track how often they play tennis/exercise each week and monitor their weight loss and health goals.

“We are extremely excited to announce the launch of tennis-health.com and see it as a key interactive site to reach various markets of consumers and teaching professionals,” said Jack Groppel, Ph.D., USPTA master professional and vice president, co-chair of Tennis — for the health of it! Advisory Council, co-founder of Human Performance Institute. “We truly feel that everyone can benefit from playing tennis and we feel this site provides them with the resources to meet their fitness goals through tennis because it’s not only a healthy sport, but also offers social interaction, competition and a mental workout.”
The site also features information and background on the initiative, breakdown of how different markets, whether they are recreational tennis players, competitive tennis players, nonplayers, or parents looking for activities for children, can benefit from tennis. Consumers have the opportunity to search for tennis events, programs and teaching professionals in their area, while teaching professionals have the opportunity to promote their programs, events and facilities on the site.

The connection function allows users to search for and connect with other consumers or teaching professionals or invite others to visit the site and register. It is a great way for people who are trying to get healthy together to invite accountability partners to the site and monitor their progress and help motivate each other. People may also share stories on how tennis has impacted their lives. To register and get started, visit tennis-health.com.

Tennis — for the health of it! is an initiative started by the USPTA in January 2008 to make the general public aware of the tremendous health, fitness and psychological benefits of tennis and encourage people to get out and play the sport as a part of their regular fitness regimens. The sport of tennis is also social and fun, and can be a welcome change to routine gym workouts or as an additional activity in a fitness routine as part of a healthy lifestyle. The USPTA and its members are the delivery force through which the public can receive these benefits through lessons and other tennis activities.